Traditionally Somali women were absent from decision-making outside the family level. Most of the decisions made at the community level revolved around conflict resolution and other clan affairs, which were dealt with in all-male ad-hoc assemblies under the "justice tree". Women, although belonging to their father’s clan like men, were never represented in these assemblies. Their role was limited to private consultations their husbands made with them on the matters at hand. And even these consultations were kept at a low profile in order not to undermine the man’s role of public decision-maker.

As formal politics in the form of modern governance took shape after independence in 1960, political representation was based on the clan system and men continued to occupy that domain. Ironically it was under the repressive military regime that Somali women for the first time took political positions in the public arena. But even then, Women’s role remained minimal and few token positions were given to them.

With the collapse of the Barre regime a vacuum was created by the disintegration of all government institutions. As a result the traditional mechanisms for governance was revived in the newly created state of Somaliland as an option to avert the chaos and lawlessness that could have otherwise taken place in such a situation. However, resorting to traditional politics also means that women are marginalized in the process. Today, women are not represented in the governing bodies of the new State of Somaliland.

This total absence and exclusion of women from decision making in top leadership positions of their country has other negative consequences for them. Among these are:

1. lack of acquisition of the necessary experience for taking part in public decision-making
2. Perpetuation of the negative attitudes regarding women’s ability to lead and govern,
3. Lack of role models of women leaders for young women and girls
4. Important decisions reached without women’s view-point
5. And lack of interest in decision-making by most women as political positions have been stereotyped into male roles

All these factors in turn reinforce women’s absence from decision making and a vicious circle is created.

However, after the last national conference, which took place in Hargeisa in 1997 and which some women participated on their own initiative, things seem to have moved in the right direction with regard to women’s chances of entering positions that influence public decision making. In that conference, a draft constitution was passed and consensus to hold free and fair elections after a period of three years was reached. During the conference, the women present played an active role and voiced their grievances on women’s complete absence from decision-making at all levels as well as relegating issues of particular importance to women into the background by the male policy-makers.

Drawing on this prevailing positive environment, and after a series of discussions between the Somaliland Women’s Research and Action Group (SOWRAG) and the International Cooperation for Development (ICD), the need to contribute towards promoting Somali women’s decision-making in the critical post-conflict period was put forward as an area of action. This small study on assessing potential women leaders in the major towns of Somaliland will therefore complement and contribute to a broader program of empowering women in decision-making, which is being undertaken by Negaad Women’s Umbrella Organization and SOWRAG.

Specifically, the study aims to:

Identify potential women leaders in Somaliland so as to make available a data base on a mass of women leaders for potential leadership training opportunities, appointing them to decision making at the various levels when needed etc.

Find out some of the major commonly held perceptions about women’s leadership capabilities and decision making roles within the Somali society

Come up with recommendations on the skills needed for empowering women in the decision-making processes in order to improve their leadership capabilities and increase their knowledge on good governance and democratic principles.

1. Methodology

This report is based on a questionnaire administered to 65 women identified as potential leaders chosen from the major six towns of Somaliland. In addition to the questionnaire, we made in-depth interviews and informal discussions with a cross section of individual men and women in all the visited towns to find out their perceptions on women’s role in decision-making. The number of identified women leaders from the different towns are as follows: Hargeisa 20, Burao 14, Borame 9, Berbera 7, Erigavo 8 and Las Anod 7. Since Hargiesa has the most population compared to the other towns, we made a list of all the given names and then we drew a random sample of 20 women. The list was very long and it was not in the scope of the study to interview all the listed names. The data gathering took place during the month of March 2000. Four enumerators namely Khatra Jama Mohamed (Borame), Kiin Ali Farah (Hargeisa), Farduus Ismail Osman (Berbera, Burao and Las Anod) And Hodan Barre Duale (Erigavo) under the guidance of the consultant filled the questionnaire. The in-depth interviews and the informal discussions were conducted by the consultant.

The women who were asked the questionnaire were chosen on the basis of their prominence in their respective communities, involvement in civil society activities as well as whether other women from their communities regard them as leaders. In all the towns, with the exception of Hargeisa, the same names mostly came up whenever different people were asked to list the women whom they regard to be potential leaders. One reason could be that as mentioned before, Hargeisa is more populous and is bigger than the other towns.

The information sought included:

1. Background information on the women such as their names, age, marital status, educational level and number of children they have.
2. Work experience
3. Their involvement in community activities
4. Leadership positions, if any
5. Their interest in getting involved in politics
6. Possible obstacles that could hamper women’s participation in top leadership positions and decision making
7. The kind of training, if any, that the women participated in
8. And their views towards women in political leadership positions

2. Limitations of the Study

The process of choosing potential women leaders is not easy. Therefore the women who were eventually interviewed does not by any means imply that there are not other women who could be good leaders. On the contrary, there are so many women who could make good leaders but who can hardly find the time to get involved in the public decision-making process. Either because they shoulder both the home responsibility and the economic responsibility or they simply leave that role to men in the belief that decision making beyond the household level is a male area. Moreover, the women who work for international organizations have not been interviewed although they are a potential group, who have gained a lot of experience in management, leadership qualities and decision making. This attempt of assessing potential women leaders therefore is the beginning and should be regarded as a continuous process. By periodically assessing potential leaders with well-defined criteria, can a critical mass of women leaders always be available.

3. Background Information on Women Leaders

The ages of 34 of the women that have been identified as leaders ranged from 30 to 40 years of age, 19 of the women were aged between 41 to 50, Five women were in the age groups of 51 to 60 while five women were above 60 years of age. Only two of the women were under thirty years.

The women with children had an average of five children. 20 of the women had children who were less than 12 years.

As to the marital status of the women leaders, 50 are married, 7 are widows and 6 are divorced while only 2 were not yet married.

Seven of the women interviewed (10%) had never gone to school and had no formal education. These women were mostly the older ones. The remaining 42 had education levels ranging from Koranic/Adult School to university level. The rest didn’t answer. The following table shows the education background of the women by age.

Table 1 Level of Education by Age Group

The level of education among the women leaders is high and does not reflect the educational status of women in Somaliland in general. The available evidence shows that the educational level of girls and women in Somaliland is very low. There are many factors, which are attributed to the low education among women. The domestic responsibility which falls exclusively on young girls, the belief that girls will one day marry into another family and the legacy of years of war and destruction are some of the identified reasons for women’s low education status.

An interesting point concerning those respondents with low education level was the way they viewed this as a major handicap when it comes to women’s full potentiality in participating in decision-making. "If I had the necessary education, I would have the confidence to take part in top leadership positions at the national level", was a typical response of those women who didn’t have any formal education. Moreover these women asserted that they would rather take part in leadership positions at the local level instead of the higher positions at the national levels. 22 of the women (33%) said that they would prefer to participate at the local government. The reasons the women gave for the choice of this level were:

47 of the women identified to be potential women leaders had previous work experience outside their work at home. They were involved at some point in informal trading activities, teaching, nursing and civil service in various government ministries. None of the women had held any significant leadership position. The highest position recorded for the respondents was director of a department in a ministry. However, the majority, 95% had gained their current work experience through their activities in the women’s NGOs.

Since women’s NGOs as other NGOs is a recent development which was born with the independence of Somaliland, it could be said that the nine years which Somaliland existed as an independent entity have been very crucial for Somaliland women regarding women’s involvement in decision-making outside their families. In fact women’s NGOs are the only avenue by which Somaliland women can exercise their decision-making powers at the public level.

Currently, 40 of the respondents are heads of local women’s groups. 20 women have their own small businesses including some of the women involved in women’s NGOs who combine trading activities (for example some have their own shops/stalls and work there during their spare time) and 10 women are working in different ministries. It must be noted here that of those women, who are currently working in the various ministries in Somaliland, only five are heads of department sections. None of the private sector small companies have women in managerial positions. Therefore none of the respondents come from this sector.

Some of the identified women were also members of varied committees in their respective towns, a fact which according to some women, gave them some first hand experience in running the affairs of their communities. However, only few women are among the different committees that exist at the regional levels. The majority of the women were members of neighborhood committees and social service committees in their respective districts and sub-districts (guddi degmo iyo xaafad). The committees mentioned and the women involved are presented in table 3.

Women’s involvement in local committees

Due to their involvement in community activities and as members of women NGOs, most of the respondents had participated in several training. Most of these training are geared towards women’s traditional roles. Such training include, among others, breast feeding and sanitation However some of the women also mentioned taking other kinds of training such as peace-making and conflict resolution, capacity building, leadership training.

Among the leading organizations which the women mentioned as initiating these training were Life and Peace Institute, ICD, The Danish Refugee Council, Coopi and GTZ.

4. Respondent’s Readiness in Taking Part in Political Decision making

A common view expressed by the women interviewees was the importance and the urgent need for Somaliland women to participate at every level of the decision-making process. The women further stated that since women are half of the population of Somaliland, they have a right to be part of the decision-making bodies. One of the identified leaders echoed the commonly held feelings of most of the women respondents and has this to say about women’s absence from public decision making:

It is absolutely unacceptable for women to shy away from politics and leave the national decisions to men. Women should make every effort to get involved. If men think that decision making beyond the household level is the domain of men, it is up to us as women to disprove them and demand our right. Unless we make a conscious effort towards this end, we will always remain marginalized in the areas of politics and decision making in general.

The large majority of the interviewed women showed a high degree of readiness in participating in leadership positions in the government machinery. A general response to whether respondents were thinking of participating in top leadership positions at the various levels was: "If men can become leaders women can also. There is no reason why we shouldn’t".

However, there was a difference among the women in their readiness and confidence to participate in the various levels of public decision making. While some of the women showed their confidence in being able to participate even in the highest levels of decision making, there were some who felt that they do not have the qualifications and the experience to participate except at the local level. The following table shows the women’s readiness to participate at the different levels and their level of education.

Table 4

Expressed preference of respondents to participate in the various levels of decision making

5. Barriers to Women’s participation in High Leadership Positions

For true democracy to take place in Somaliland, it is important to include women in all levels of decision-making. However, because of the long tradition of viewing public decision making as a male area and the socialization process connected to this view, the road to women’s participation in positions of power and influence is anticipated to be long and difficult.

There are many obstacles to women’s full participation in public decision making that have been identified by the women leaders that were interviewed.

Among the anticipated obstacles mentioned were:

5. Perceptions about Women’s Leadership capabilities and Decision making Role

Regarding the views of people on women’s role in decision-making, informants differed in their opinion. Women were, in general, more positive than men in their attitude towards women’s role in decision making. Among women, elderly respondents were more persistent in their attitude of seeing leadership positions as being a male prerogative. These elderly women maintained that women had nothing to do with decisions outside the household and that women are not capable of leading.

The majority of the women informants however stated that women are as capable as men of making decisions and that if given the chance, they might even be more capable than some of the men. These women further said that the experience gained from the war has raised their confidence in themselves and that they are more aware of their potentiality now. This point was made by one of the women we had discussions with:

Women had always thought that public decision-making was only for men. We believed that men know better and will manage the society’s affairs properly. But men are after all human beings like us and they differ in their capabilities, wisdom, intelligence etc. just as women. We learned this through the hard way. When we fled the war and returned to a devastated country, women took a lion’s share in picking up the pieces and helping their families and their communities to survive. If we could do that, we can also make decisions for the society in general. In fact, I feel that women can do better since they are free from the addiction of "qat" chewing, which is plaguing our society.

With regard to men’s attitude towards women and decision-making, there were three views held. The first group whose attitude towards women’s participation in the decision-making process was the most positive, believed that women had a right to take part in the decision-making processes and could make good leaders.

The second group did not in principle reject the idea of women’s involvement in public decision-making. However they made the point that "women are not coming forward to demand their rights", "there are no women of caliber who could be appointed to high leadership positions" and "Women are already burdened with household work and should not be overburdened by other work.

The last group saw decision making as a male area. "Women are made to take care of the home and children" was a common argument made by these men who thought that there was no need for women’s participation in public leadership positions. Within this group, there were some that vehemently rejected any involvement of women in public decision making. Such men showed anger and an air of superiority when they were making their point. "How can a woman be my leader. I am a man and I am superior to her" was their response.

During our discussions on women and leadership, religious arguments were put forward for excluding women from public affairs. There is a specific Hadith which is used by religious leaders who totally reject the idea of women becoming leaders. The hadith, which is said to be uttered by the prophet (peace be upon Him) states: "people who entrust their affairs to women will not succeed". However religious leaders are in general divided on the point of women and leadership. Religious leaders who oppose the above view maintain that there is nothing in the Quran, which prohibits women from taking public leadership positions and that men and women are equal in the eyes of Allah.

The latter religious leader argue that in surat al Naml it is clearly shown that women can be successful leaders. "Lo, I found a woman ruling over them, and she had been given (abundance) of all things, and hers is a mighty throne (verse 20-44).*

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* Translation by Mohamed Marmaduke Pickthall.

One thing however came out clearly from the way people used religion as a justification for barring women from taking up leadership positions. There was a commonly held belief that men were superior to women. A case in point was the commonly cited verse in Surat al Nisa. "Men are in charge of Women" (verse 34) whenever the position of women is discussed. While this verse refers to men’s economic responsibilities, many people tend to assume that men are superior to women. People tend to confuse differences with superiority/inferiority. There is nothing in the Quran, which indicates that men are better than women. All are equal in the eyes of Allah and that as human beings they have an equal value.

7. Conclusion and Recommendations

We have seen that Somaliland women are not involved in important leadership positions in Somaliland and are totally excluded. We have also seen that their non-participation is based on deep cultural believes coupled with religious misinterpretations. However, as is evident from the study, Somaliland women are becoming more aware of their political rights and are beginning to question the commonly held perception that only men have a right to reach decisions on their behalf.

Women's exclusion from the decision-making processes in Somaliland is an issue, which can no longer be ignored. If at one point people saw public leadership positions as a male domain, this pretext can not be continued any longer. Democracy would be a mockery if half of the population of Somaliland were left out. In order to correct this imbalance, certain measures must be taken into account. We outline a few of these considerations.

The major responsibility of including women in the top decision making positions lay with the Somaliland government. Unless the political will to promote women’s participation in policy decision-making positions is there, Somaliland women will remain outside the political decision making processes. Among other things, the government can come up with an official policy, which initiates national programs to include women in political, social and economic decision making. One way to do this is the introduction of affirmative action policies, at least in the present situation where clan representation is the basis for choosing people into political offices. Since it is a well known fact that no clan will choose a woman to represent them, a certain percentage of seats should be set aside for women.

The civil society on their part can work closely with the government in initiating public awareness campaigns to encourage women to participate in political decision making and to expose the myths surrounding this issue. A first step towards this would be to conduct a national workshop on women’s participation in decision-making.

And last but not least, an emphasis must be put in building the capacity of potential women leaders so that they become well equipped to be able to participate in senior government positions with confidence. Some of the training suggested by the respondents are: